The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning

Thoroughly updated and revised, this new edition of a classic text, for courses on the psychology of learning, is more sophisticated, current, and complete than ever, while still retaining the book’s signature emphasis on the "essentials" of conditioning and learning.

Through four previous editions, students and instructors have relied on this book’s clear, concise, and highly accessible overview of the processes and mechanisms responsible for conditioning and learning. Domjan and Delamater summarize major theories of how humans and nonhuman animals learn, along with the classic experiments that support these theories and how they have been applied to address real-world problems.

New in the fifth edition:

• Increased discussion of clinical and translational relevance of research with laboratory animals
• Additional coverage of current associative, ethological, behavioral, and information processing approaches to the study of learning and behavior
• New neuroscience findings to clarify behavioral mechanisms
• A streamlined presentation, clarified explanations, and copious new research
• Greater emphasis on how concepts relate to common human experiences—for example, learning to discriminate between phone apps or wine tasting
• A list of YouTube mini-lecture videos designed to accompany and augment the text
• For instructors: a companion website is available containing PowerPoint slides, multiple-choice questions, reflection questions, key terms and definitions, links to supplemental videos, and a transition guide to the new edition

Preface

• Chapter 1. Basic Concepts and Definitions
• Chapter 2. The Substrate for Learning: Unconditioned Behavior
• Chapter 3. Habituation and Sensitization
• Chapter 4. Pavlovian Conditioning: Basic Concepts
• Chapter 5. Stimulus Relations in Pavlovian Conditioning
• Chapter 6. Pavlovian Conditioning Mechanisms and Theories
• Chapter 7. Instrumental or Operant Conditioning
• Chapter 8. Schedules of Reinforcement
• Chapter 9. Theories of Reinforcement
• Chapter 10. Extinction of Conditioned Behavior
• Chapter 11. Punishment
• Chapter 12. Avoidance Learning
• Chapter 13. Stimulus Control of Behavior
• Chapter 14. Memory Mechanisms

Glossary

References

Michael Domjan is professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught learning for five decades. His book, The Principles of Learning and Behavior (Cengage), is now in its 7^th edition. Dr. Domjan is recipient of the D.O. Hebb Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology, and his research was recently celebrated by a special issue of the journal Learning & Behavior (2022, volume 50, number 3).

Andrew R. Delamater is professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he has taught various courses in learning and behavior theory and in the neurobiology of associative learning since 1994. He has served the discipline in a variety of ways: as president of the Pavlovian Society (2016) and the Eastern Psychological Association (2012), as a regular member on NIH study sections, as a member on editorial boards for a variety of journals, and currently as editor for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning & Cognition.

This book provides a cohesive and accessible introduction to the essential features of conditioning and learning: from the design of well controlled behavioral experiments to the theoretical and applied perspectives that bear on their results. Each chapter provides an engaging and authoritative account of a given topic, accompanied by links to other chapters and a pathway to further study through well-chosen additional readings and supplemental videos. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to students from a broad range of disciplines, including psychology and neuroscience.
—Robert C. Honey, DPhil, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales

This is a comprehensive yet accessible textbook about learning mechanisms. Written with both undergraduate and graduate students in mind, this book offers a wealth of information that is easy to grasp and practical to apply in behavior analysis. And now, with new resources, this edition is even more appealing to faculty teaching the material for the first time.
—Beth Ann Rice, PhD, Department of Psychology, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA, United States

The 5^th edition remains an excellent core text to build a course around. It provides a clear, concise, and contemporary presentation of critical learning phenomena and theory. The application of learning research to human experience is particularly appealing to psychology students.
—Laurence J. Nolan, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Wagner College, Staten Island, NY, United States

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Welcome to the student resources for The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning, Fifth Edition. Authored by Dr. Karen E. Gill, Centre College, these documents are offered for your personal study. If you reprint or adapt them for publication, permission is required from the publisher. All material is ©2023 by the American Psychological Association.

• Chapter summariesopens in new window
• Practice quiz questionsopens in new window
• List of YouTube videos to supplement the textbookopens in new window